Frederick Heath, a.k.a. Johnny Kidd, did *not* have to wear an eyepatch; it was just that one time his guitar string broke and hit him in the eye and he wore this eyepatch just *once* and a girl backstage told him he looked like a pirate, so... At least that's the story. With the name Johnny Kidd and a backup band named the Pirates, Kidd started rocking England with an unusually raw sound; when other crooners were going towards soft ballads, Kidd was creating a more hard-driven corpus of music.

His 1959 hit "Please don't touch" is a much covered masterpiece. One very good cover can be heard on Matchbox's first Rockhouse album "Riders in the Sky". With his manager Guy Robinson, Kidd wrote the astonishing "Shakin' All Over" (somewhat reminiscent of Cliff's "Move It"), a petulant, rebellious anthem. Kidd remained an icon for British would-be rockers (like the Beatles, who nevertheless continued to imitate their American sources) and went on touring lessening crowds until his unfortunate death in a car crash in 1966.